Final Fantasy VI: Brave New World Part #7 - Sabin and Cyan Enjoy Jumping Off Waterfalls

Part 7: Sabin and Cyan Enjoy Jumping Off Waterfalls

Chapter 6 - Sabin and Cyan Enjoy Jumping Off Waterfalls

So we jump off this massive waterfall and, assuming we survive, we'll probably drift to the monster-infested Veldt and then hope we find some magic way to get to Nikeah from there?

That's the plan.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me!

Shadow's apparently not a fan of this, so it's just Sabin and Cyan falling down a waterfall for several minutes.

Enough time to Suplex piranhas that happen to be swimming in the middle of the waterfall!

Rizopas is nastier, though, with a ton more HP, plus more dangerous attacks like the seizure-inducing GigaVolt.

Plus it countered my Pummel with a nasty El Nino, scaring me to stick with physical attacks for awhile, which it shakes off.

But Suplex is useful for more than just defying the laws of gravity! It inflicts confusion, which stops the guy's nastier attacks while Sabin is able to boost his damage. Cyan counters seizure with meat.

That's another fight that's much tougher until you find the right tactics to take care of it.

Anyway, Sabin and Cyan wash up unconscious on the monster-infested Veldt, so their brilliant plan has worked without a hitch.

Well, other than some kid kicking the crap out of them.

No luck there, so on to the Veldt.

The Veldt is similar, yet different. More on that once we recruit Gau, though.

Same deal as the original, except now you don't have to go to Mobliz first to buy an item you'll otherwise never use again.

Gau's dialogue is a bit different. His text progresses slower and in chunks, making him sound more deliberate, more monotone. His grasp of language is still poor, but he's less hyper and more thoughtful, it feels like.

Sorry, he doesn't like memes.

k Mr. Thou

Whatever, let's get my treasure so we can leave this place.

Gau is of a similar build to Shadow and Locke, i.e. fast as hell, though he has some of the lowest starting HP of any character.

Rage itself has been overhauled a bit, mainly in how the available rages have been thinned down to 64 usable ones. To compensate, the Veldt only has encounters with Rageable enemies now, so it's less of a pain to get available Rages. In a short time, I got most of the ones available at the time before I left to Nikaeh, though I did miss out on Stray Cat for the time. Ah well.

Rage itself is instantaneous rather than the short delay stuff like Fight and Item have (and the longer delays of magic and most special abilities). Rages themselves are changed, with one attack having 2/3's chance of happening, with the other at 1/3. Also, unlike the original, Gau doesn't merely use a physical attack as one of these attacks, so he could have, say, Wind Slash and Air Blast as the two attacks of a rage (in this case, Leafer). Of course, many enemy special attacks will take the place of physical as well. And of course Rage has been balanced so that you don't have ridiculous stuff like Gau starting with Fire2 or having access to broken abilities immediately, though he still has some great stuff available right now.

Mobliz isn't terribly interesting. There's no new items or anything like that.

There's still this guy, except instead of the useless Tintinabar, you get the more useful Life Bell. Unlike most relics, this one doesn't boost any stats, but it does give auto-Regen, which is a pretty nice thing to have, especially since it blocks seizure as well.

After a bit of grinding, I get a handful of rages. Obviously I won't show all of them off (check the Printme for the FAQ for more details on that), but there's a couple I like early on.

Vaporite gives Float and Regen to Gau, which is nice, plus its more likely attack, Blaze, does solid damage, while SlowX is handy to slow down groups of enemies (and right now is our only way to inflict slow).

Leafer has Wind Slash, which does good damage to groups of monsters. Air Blast is only single-target, but it's less likely so hey.

These guys are messed up.

Demon rage gives the damaging Elf Fire to Gau. His secondary attack is a physical that can inflict Muddle, from what I've read, which is also nice.

Both these guys absorb lightning (and water, of course). They're also pretty fragile for this part of the game, so no big deal.

The Serpent Trench is pretty dull overall, so let's skip to Nikeah.

Oh, I will.

The Stout Spear boosts HP by 1/8, while the Kotetsu boosts Vigor and Stamina by 3 while also giving Cyan (and Shadow, who can equip katanas) the ability to counter-attack. Kotetsu's a must-buy for Cyan of course, and I get a second Spirit Claw for Sabin.

The Iron Helmet and Armor are two of the three new armor pieces here. Speed penalties for both, of course (-2 for the Helmet, -3 for Armor), but they give huge increases to both physical and magical defenses. The other addition is the Silk Robe, a nice upgrade to the Cotton Robe with more magic defense and a +3 Magic boost to the Cotton's +2.

Barrier Cube is the only one we haven't seen yet, which is the auto-Shell when critical accessory that boosts Magic Defense by 20. Still, this is the first time you can actually buy any of these besides the Dragoon Seal, so it's a great time to stockpile on any accessories you may want.

Time for another famous scene from this game. Once again, I'm letting this one speak for itself, so all text is from the actual hack.